Friday 13 November 2015

Reclaiming The Radical

At 13, I was a self-proclaimed ‘indie kid’, often to be found in the playground with a guitar and a book of poetry, spouting soundbites from philosophers that I didn’t fully understand. It felt important and it enabled me to belong to a ‘tribe’, while at the same time I could convince myself that I was unique. Looking back I can see that it was all a normal part of growing up, asserting my own identity, and finding like-minded people. It was also completely harmless.

Today as an educationalist, a parent, and a so-called ‘grown-up’, I keep my eyes open with a mix of nostalgia and curiosity for all the new tribes who will follow in the footsteps of the indie kids, townies, goths, crusties, and sk8ers that went before them, But I’m not sure that such tribes really exist anymore.

With the dawn of the social media age, the internet has broken apart the concept of ‘subculture’ so that everyone can simultaneously belong to every tribe and no tribe. Borders and boundaries are tumbling and the idea of identifying yourself in terms of a single music or fashion counterculture has become more mainstream than the mainstream itself. Everything seems to be a mash-up, and in that environment sometimes a clear message can appear especially seductive.

But my nostalgia for my own youth is increasingly tinged with something else: a worry that some young people today might not know how to belong to something anymore, or, indeed know where to belong. Whereas youth-focused subcultures used to put safe, local boundaries around teenagers’ natural need to rebel, the very essence of ‘belonging’ to something has changed in a world of 24-hour mobility, globalisation, and social networking. After all, why join a club when you can contact the entire world?

Today, if young people feel ‘other’, dispossessed, or different to the people around them, then the Web can offer an altogether different type of lifeline, one that takes them away from their immediate worlds, or connects them with radically different ones. Online platforms, gaming communities, fan groups, and more, may open up new avenues of friendship, sometimes with strangers in other parts of the world who appear to share common interests and passions.

Of course, that can be a wonderful thing, and vulnerable young people may discover a world of support and understanding rather than harm. But many internet safety specialists tell us that that the dispersed and amorphous nature of online communities can sometimes be used to hide very different agendas. Some experts warn that children are increasingly at risk of being lured towards extreme ideas and ideological kinships.

So how worried should we really be about some young people’s frustrations or anger being turned into something that is genuinely destructive to either themselves or to the people around them?

The ‘radicalisation’ of disaffected young people often occurs when the immediate mainstream feels alien to them, while a community elsewhere – with its promise of thousands of like-minded people – appears to offer easy answers to big questions. The construction of fundamentalist politics and beliefs sits much more easily at the centre of that perfect storm of private disaffection and external allure than it does in any other scenario.

It’s important to emphasise that all political viewpoints, faiths, and belief systems have their extreme proponents, and in today’s world of fast news and easy social shares, it’s easy to mistake the extreme as representing the centre or the majority. Sometimes young people make that mistake too.

Radicalisation, then, is not the preserve of any one political or religious movement, or of any one belief system or community. But the more conservatively fundamentalist that any viewpoint is, ironically the bigger the change from the status quo it offers, or demands. No wonder that children and young people (and within that, we know that BAME and looked after children even more so) are often at the greatest risk from any such message, especially if it is one of hatred of the people around them. 

To say that the fear and prevention of radicalisation is a political hot potato at the moment is an understatement, particularly for anyone whose job is to teach and care for young people. It’s a stark reality that in a very small, but serious, number of cases, the lure of various ideologies has resulted in people uprooting themselves to follow the promise of a different life, in some cases fighting for causes that value the brutal subjugation of dissent. Nobody pretends that our own society is perfect, but some teenagers’ disaffection makes it easier for others to attach a hate-filled or violent viewpoint to young people’s commonplace desire for change.

The Home Office and Ofsted are particularly keen to roll out the Prevent Agenda, a set of safeguarding duties that legally oblige education and youth support services to look out for and report any signs that suggest an individual in their care may be being ‘radicalised’.

In Sussex, where I live, there are some particular areas of concern with small networks of young people turning openly to hateful and righteous messages online. Social networks are an unparalleled tool for spreading a message quickly, but once it is out there is no taking it back – a lesson that many teenagers are still learning the hard way.

Safeguarding has, and always will be, paramount to those teaching children and young people, but this environment is certainly presenting some new challenges. Some education providers – mainly FE colleges and independent training providers – have already had their inspection grades reduced because their internal Prevent Agenda strategy has been underdeveloped.

But the government’s new approach to monitoring and intervention is coupled with another obligation on teachers, and that is to embed the concept of ‘British values’ into their school curriculum. According to the Department for Education, these values are: democracy; the rule of law; individual liberty and mutual respect; and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.

It’s understandable, therefore, that some teachers, social workers and parents are finding areas of confusion or potential conflict between these two sets of obligations. For example: at what point does monitoring students’ extracurricular behaviour and beliefs, as the Prevent Agenda implies, encroach on their individual liberty, which the teaching of British values is designed to protect?

Other questions that teachers find themselves asking include: when is a radical belief no longer tolerated? How is that expressed, and by whom? Is the concept of ‘radical’ in itself always a bad thing? And what makes certain – presumably more moderate – values uniquely ‘British’ – rather than, say, European, Asian, African, or American?

Many teachers and assessors are uneasy with the implications of viewing ethical conduct in national, rather than simply ‘human’, terms. For one thing, many long-established ‘British’ values are missing from the government’s own list – what about fairness, for example? And for another, there is a clear inference that someone born elsewhere, including in Europe or the US, will have a completely different set of values. On the whole, they probably won’t. And there’s another consideration too: the internet is global.

I’m in no way trying to make or score any political points here, but these prescriptions do leave themselves open to question – especially when there are penalties involved for not getting it ‘right’.

Most teachers and parents, when thinking about the safety of children, are beginning to understand that the internet is a place like any other. While virtual places may feel more abstract, they are still places where people meet and engage, where behaviours have consequences, and where the urge to explore is compelling, even if the risks are great.

We now understand all too well that vulnerable people can be groomed and influenced without ever meeting the perpetrator. We also understand that values and ethics and codes of conduct are as much in play as in the real world, but can also appear looser and less clear, and be skewed by the anonymity of participants.

So I suggest that what we have here is a real opportunity. What this all boils down to is that young people’s disaffection and/or alienation always has the potential of leading to destructive and hate-fuelled ideas, thoughts, and actions. Yet, crucially, it always has the potential for the exact opposite, too. As communities, we need to look for the tipping point at which frustration can become a drive to build and change for the better, rather than to forge a need to destroy.

What we have come to call ‘radicalisation’ is seen by those who entice young people towards hate-filled behaviours as a means to an end; it is not the end itself. And it’s worth remembering something equally important: the connotations of extreme hate and barbarism attached to the word ‘radical’ are a recent phenomenon.

We should all work to ensure that ‘radical’ never becomes permanently associated with negative, vicious, hate-filled, or violent behaviour. Every dictionary definition of radical speaks of ‘change’, ‘thoroughness’, ‘innovation’, and ‘action’, and there are countless positive examples of this online. Lots of ‘radical’ thinkers have changed the world for the better, after all.

For example, every day we see social media being used to gather signatures on petitions; to raise money for charities, disadvantaged people, and emergency or disaster relief; to call public figures to account, and to co-ordinate rallies or support new ideas, inventions, campaigns, and ventures. This is radical. These too are ‘radicalised’ moments – and ‘radicalised’ people are playing a part in these moments – and the internet now plays the most crucial part of all in connecting people and reaching out to others.

As responsible adults, our duty is to do more than shield, monitor, and prevent vulnerable children from discovering the dark places. We should also encourage and persuade them to ‘think big’ about what the future could look like. As a society we need to be having conversations with our children and our students about what hatred, fear, difference, and extreme behaviours feel like, look like, and sound like. Disenfranchised? Feeling left out? OK. So what can we do together to change that and make things better for everyone?

As I touched on earlier, I get excited about the idea of human values, and the role such discussions could have in getting children and young people to talk about subjects such as ideology, globalisation, identity, duty, and social action.

After all, the internet rarely respects sovereign borders – unless censorship is involved, as in China – so perhaps there should be a set of taught/discussed human values that remind us of the faces and the hands behind the machines. We can hang onto great ideas such as mutual respect and tolerance, but perhaps add the value that shared spaces should always be used for the common good – and that innovation, generosity, and goodwill should be rewarded.

When we’re picking apart the internet with our children and examining the connections that they’re making, we could do worse than to hang the conversation on concepts such as peace, truth, right conduct, love, and non-violence. But what do these actually mean, beyond the clichés and sentimentalism? Imagine, with the world now so close to us and new ideas so readily available, how genuinely radical (in the true sense) we could all be.

Whenever I work with young people – some whom may be very vulnerable through circumstance or poverty of opportunity – I always get them to stop and think about who they are: who they actually are and want to be.

Human beings – even the more solitary ones among us – are relational people, in that most of us construct images of ourselves in relation to what we think other people’s perceptions of us might be. For example, others consider me to be creative, talkative, and pretty ropey at DIY – I know this because different people tell me so – but does this mean that it’s true? It might not be, but those perceptions have become part of my identity and have helped form my behaviours. Online, our identities are more fluid, but still just as constructed and controlled. The most significant difference is that, as hard as it might be, we can switch it off! This is especially important when the images of themselves that some vulnerable young people get from the internet are negative, thanks to cyber-bullying and other problems related to self-esteem.

The children and young people who are at the highest risk of radicalisation are those looking for confirmation of who they are and what their consequential behaviours must be (possibly because adult influence has not been effective at providing that guidance). As the safest influencers in their lives, it’s our responsibility to get there first and to find a way to help them work this out. Let us be the ones to make our children into radical thinkers in the most tolerant, constructive, and innovative sense. Positive internet communities can help us do that.

Let’s reclaim the real meaning of radical: being innovative and thorough, and taking positive action, not reinforcing hate and violence. Let’s treasure and celebrate teenage fashion and musical tribes as a means of self-expression, because the alternatives can be devastating. Let’s keep talking about our values and our behaviours and what unites us, in both our physical and online spaces.


The biggest tool we have against malicious, nihilistic radicals – wherever they may be in the world – is our human capacity to be bigger, more positive, and more inclusive radicals than they are.

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Richard Freeman the Director of always possible.

We support education providers, creative organisations, values-led business and charities with project development, organisational cultures, policy, leadership & resilience. Please visit alwayspossible.co.uk to see how we can support you.

This article was originally commissioned for Child Internet Safety magazine and was skillfully edited by Chris Middleton.